Two Sides, One Coin
by AmoghSyn
Summary: Roxas is stuck on a depleted, decaying Old Earth, dreaming of a way off the decrepit planet. Fate, misfortune and a red headed space pirate all smile upon him, granting his wish. Is a junker of a spaceship hurtling between planets with the rowdiest, most lecherous crew any better than the place he left? And where are they going?
1. Chapter 1

_High-Octane Mecha Pirate Space Fantasy. Basically. _

_Disclaimer: I wonder if the storyboarders for KH write their own fanfictions..._

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><p>"A little rusty, but it'll do."<p>

A small, dark figure examined what would be a junk piece of metal to anyone else up to a soft, tinted blue light. A spindly little machine, no bigger than what the elders called a Dog, and curiously fashioned after one, was the figure's purveyor of light. It cocked its bulbous, metal plated head to one side, "sniffing" the device, a function not entirely for theatrics. The machine processed the information streaming through its hard driven brain, giving off a series of clicks and beeps in approval. "You like it, boy?" the figure spoke softly to his machine companion, "I'll clean it off for you, good as new, promise."

In response, the machine dangled its useless back leg in hopeful assessment of the cracked rotator cuff currently linking the appendage to its body.

Something shuffled a few yards away. The blue light flicked off and both of the scavengers sunk down into the heaps of trash metal and darkness. A wide beam of bright light roamed over the hills of junk, barely scathing the figure and his companion. Luckily, they both looked indistinguishable from garbage.

A loud voice carried over the black yard, not intended for the scavenger, but heard none the less. "Thought I heard some Intels out there," a man was calling to his companion, trudging his way down a slope of refuse, "freaky little things."

"Don't be daft," a softer voice called in response, "it's probably just some regular old rats or something."

"I don't know about you but I haven't seen a real live rat in 3 decades," the conversation was carried further into the distance until it disappeared.

"Lets get the hell out of here," he pocketed the rusting rotator cuff and slunk his way opposite the junkyard patrol. Scavenging was a serious crime, especially if it could be traced back to any kind of Intel related activity, and the boy wanted to keep both of his hands firmly on his wrists for the rest of his life. The pair ducked through a hole in the back fence, just a few minutes to spare before they turned on the falselights.

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><p>"Please tell me you were <em>not<em> slinking around in the trash again," the elder brother admonished his littler one. "You smell, you know that?"

Roxas rolled his eyes, the machine beeping and trailing after him down a narrow, dim staircase into their little hovel that the boy liked to call his "workshop". Any tradesman would be repulsed by the name, if not enraged enough to burn the makeshift hole out of the earth. Still, the projects that lay, even the half finished ones, strew across the small tables were impressive enough to make any craftsman blush.

Sora watched the hobbling mechanic creature, dragging a useless leg behind him. The boy felt a mix of disgust and pity for the thing, but mostly pity. "You're gunna get him taken away from you one of these days if you're not careful. Intel like that is some serious stuff."

"He's not Intel," Roxas huffed, bending and scooping the creature into his arms, "and his name is Shadow."

"Pft, if he's not Intel then I'm a Nighter."

"You could've been," Roxas mumbled under his breath. He set the happy little creature on his workbench, stroking its metalic back. To Shadow, he whispered, "Alright time to go to sleep. You'll be up and moving about with a fancy new cuff before you know it." Gently, the machine rested its head onto the table as Roxas flicked the switch on the underside of his belly, tucked behind a plate. The bright yellow eyes slowly powered off. The boy set to his work quickly, no time to spare before he had to head out to his Night Work, removing the entire leg from the socket, wires dangling. He fastened a small headlamp above his eyes and set about cleaning the old part.

Night Work was required of him, and every other citizen assigned to the Nighters of Old Earth as his duty to society. This work began immediately after schooling and, depending on how stupid or bright you were, school could end at any time. Many kids were pulled out of Middle Years to start work on Harvest and Farms, Roxas was pulled out in the middle of his Late Years, due to his truancy, apathy and general shitty attitude towards his teachers who had had just about enough of him. He was placed in Mech Industry, with regards to his talent for mechanics and sciences. It was a bullshit job with hard, long hours and no satisfaction. He basically tuned up the machines that were used for Farming, or sitting on assembly lines next to the worst smelling disfigured men who would tell gruesome stories of appendages lost to the ever moving belt line, waggling their stumpy hands at him. Although...not as bad smelling, Roxas had the mindfulness to notice, as he probably smelled.

"Roxas, Falselights are on," Sora hollered down the hole.

Resigned, he sighed, pushing himself back from the workbench. Shadow would have to stay asleep for a little while longer, he'd be safer like that anyways. He shed his disgusting garb and threw it down a laundry chute, which would gobble up his filth, churn it in disinfectant and sanitizer, and deposit the folded lump on his bed. The Night Work uniform was horribly hideous, a loud orange jumpsuit with reflective tape along the waistline like a belt. No one could disappear into the dark in that garb. Citizens were a precious commodity, especially after all the Resettling. Old Earth was old news, and no one wanted to live there anymore. The only ones who stayed were those that didn't have a choice.

"Here's lunch," Sora placed a lightweight paper bag in his hands. Rations were low this month. "If you could pick up some eggs on your way back that'd be fantastic."

"I'll see if there's any left."

Roxas shoved the heavy wooden door open, it groaned on its joints. "When're you gunna fix that door? You play all day in your basement with your toys but you cant do a damn thing useful around here."

"You're my brother, not my wife," Roxas quipped, smirking when Sora stuck his tongue out at his younger brother. "You fix it."

"Whatever," Sora chimed nonchalantly, returning to his dishes and other housework.

Roxas stepped out into the Falselight.

Compact, brilliant globes hovered in intervals about 30 feet apart, each one a story off the ground, giving off a light that looked and felt like a tiny sun. Falselight, so it was called, were adaptations of the lights made for people who had seasonal affective disorder, aka people who needed more sunlight but didn't get it either due to the climate or their Shut-In habits. After Overpopulation hit its peak, everyone was divided. Daylighters and Nighters.

Bathing in the light of the second suns, Roxas, the Second Son, begrudgingly set out to his Citizens Duty in the darkness he was assigned to since birth.

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><p><em>Comment, like, hate, do whatever floats your boat. <em>


	2. Chapter 2

"Get back boy, bigger people need more food," a burly, hairy man shoved Roxas away from the Merchant's counter to get a better look at the packages of Meat and tofu. Meat was a very polite term for what the slop actually was, considering how "Farming" and "Harvesting" fell into the same category. Old Earth hadn't had any animals on it's surface besides humans since the fallout cleared nearly 50 years back. Some claimed to see phantom cats, dogs, and mice scurrying in the darkness, hopeful illusions of a paradise lost.

"I think your fat ass could do with a day of hunger," Roxas muttered, wriggling his thin frame between desperately pushy people, deft fingers teasing a small, unattended loaf of bread from someone's basket amidst the commotion.

"What did you say, boy," the big man had heard him and didn't take too kindly to insult. He yanked Roxas from the crowd by the hem of his work uniform, sweaty from his full shift. The moon was setting, the falselights were dimming, there wasn't much time for Nighters to do their shopping before they were required to go home and sleep. Roxas didn't have the patience for this.

The boy wormed around in the man's fat fist when he finally noticed who he'd insulted. An Engineer from his own factory, and a pretty important one judging by his flowing basket of food and nice clothes. Over his sinew and muscle, his indulgent belly bulged over his pants.

"I said, you should stop eating the village children," The words left Roxas's mouth before he had a chance to be sorry to say them. _I'm twice the engineer this sad sack could ever be_, he justified.

"Say that to me again, you little shit," beady eyes gleamed ferociously in swollen sockets, a dare. Roxas couldn't back down from a dare.

He braced himself on his next words, "Go on a diet, fat ass."

A punch ricocheted through the boy's abdomen, rattling his ribs and forcing the breath from his lungs in a hollow gasp. He threw the boy a few feet from him into the dirt, nearly colliding with shoppers. Fights were common affair among the Nighters, it's always a pleasure to watch someone else get beat up for once. A circle started to form around the pair.

Roxas picked himself up and dusted off his hands. He glared at the man with all the menace in his small body. He hunched forward and lunged himself at the broad man, right fist aiming for a broken nose. With deft precision and unpredictable speed, the engineer side stepped the boy, lifting up his knee at the same time, making contact with Roxas's gut, hard. A sharp elbow cracked into the back of his skull and set him back on the ground.

A few small jeers broke out through the crowd, aimed at Roxas. The fat man turned to address his audience triumphantly. The small commotion was beginning to die down, apparently satisfied with the beating, until something tumbled out of Roxas's jumpsuit pants. Then the real fuss began.

"Theif!" A lady shouted, the one he stole from, Roxas guessed.

The Engineer turned his massive gait to scan Roxas. Eyes fell on the loaf of bread sitting in the dirt next to the boy's face. The sun was starting to rise. Roxas lifted his head to watch the first rays of real light trickle into the atmosphere, the sky painted all pinks and purples like the whores that wandered the bordello alleyways.

"A thief with handfuls of bread and a mouth full of shit," the man bellowed, putting on a performance for his impromptu audience, adopting the role of unlikely hero.

Someone threw a rock at Roxas and hit his shoulder. "Dirty thief! Other people need to eat too!" This sentiment almost made the boy howl with laughter. His thieving was unjust, but the fat man's was as righteous as a con man in a murder line up.

A few more rocks followed suit with a few more phrases hurled behind, "Rotten thief!" "That's my bread!" "Throw him in the tunnel!"

The tunnel.

Damn any man who suggested such a fate. The tunnel was sentence worse than death given to convicted criminals of all breeds. An ambitious, abandoned mining project, the goal was to dig a tunnel from one end of Earth to the other for the sake of claiming they could do it. Some say it goes all the way through, some say it doesn't, some don't say anything. A giant catacomb labyrinth. Campfire horror stories aimed to keep the kids in bed tell of wild cannibalistic gangs desperately trying to tunnel their way out.

After a few more moments of theatrics, the crowd's attention drawn away from him, Roxas knew he had a limited time to end the first act. The dramatic love to address their audience...he just had to wait until the fat ass turned around and-

Just as predicted, the engineer turned to face the crowd, the offending bread held high in his left palm, doling out a sermon on sacrifice and hardship. Quick as a pouncing lion, Roxas leapt to his feet and charged at the man's wide back. _I am going to be in so much trouble, _was his last thought before he hopped on top of the engineer, gripping his sweaty shoulders in a piggy back style.

Startled, the man bucked underneath Roxas in perfect imitation of a rodeo bull. He delivered a swift kick to the man's enormous sides, nearly causing him to collapse to the ground. This gave Roxas the opportunity to grab the loaf of bread from his hand and shove it forcefully into the fat man's gaping mouth.

"Mffmmff!" He hollered through the bread, arms windmilling as Roxas continuously shifted and kicked at the man from behind to prevent him from regaining balance.

"Eat, you fat pig," Roxas screamed in his ear, "This is what you wanted, eat it up you fat, filthy fuck!"

The jeers of the crowd turned to wild excitement and shock, screams and hollars from all around, the commotion at once in undignified outrage and cautious approval. No one liked a fat man.

Defeated, the massive man sank to his knees, arms flying back to catch the boy and throw him over his shoulder, but Roxas was quicker. He leapt off his nack with stylized grace and kicked the back of his head, which rammed face first into the dirt, bread and spit gurgling from his mouth.

"What the hell's going on here!"

Roxas whirled around and found himself staring down a Watchguard, not 15 feet away on the outer edge of the circle, working his way in. No time to lose. Just as "Thief! Stop him!" was called out, Roxas was gone. Sprinting like a man on fire, he rushed at the thinnest part of the crowd and they parted as if real flames truly did consume him. He vaulted over the Merchant's counter, swiping a dozen eggs on his way.

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><p>Roxas barely closed the door behind him.<p>

"Hey, what the-," Sora started, but his brother was gone before he could even see him. Sora gently closed the door behind him, locking it. He stood at the entrance to the hovel, a frantic racket whirlwinding through the workshop. "What's going on," Sora called, "did you get eggs?"

Roxas flew up the stairs to the hovel, back pack in hand, Shadow stuffed haphazardly inside with a slew of necessity tools. He passed the dozen to his brother, who lit up brighter than falselights.

"You got a _whole dozen_," He piped with glee, opening the carton and inspecting them the way a mother hen would, "how did you manage that?"

"It's a long story," Roxas started, still throwing more things into the backpack with wanton haste, "and we are out of time. You need to pack a bag, nothing you dont need, and we gatta go."

"Wait...Roxas what?" His brother set aside the carton, suddenly disenchanted. He followed the blonde boy with his eyes as he emptied the meager contents of the fridge into a bag. He flittered to another part of the tiny one bedroom house, stuffing clothes, rolling a blanket, packing

packing packing everything tight. No time or space to waste.

"Roxas hold on a minute," Sora said slowly, tasting each syllable in his mouth, recognizing the sourness of dread. It was all too familiar.

"We don't have a minute," the blonde boy breathed, whipping through the contents of their home like a viscous blender. It was making Sora dizzy.

"Would you just….sit down!" His hand darted out just fast enough to grab Roxas by the sleeve. The boy fell flat on his ass, being deprived of his momentum. A few mech projects Roxas was carrying clambered out of his hands, rolling across the tarnished wooden floor. "Good, now that I have your attention I would like to open the conversation by saying: What the fuck did you do?!"

Dramatically, Roxas ran a hand through his hair, the spikes growing wilder, "There's literally no time for me to-"

Voices broke through their commotion, official sounding, "Excuse me Ma'am, I'm looking for a short, blonde haired kid-"

Sora, listening to this, threw a glare at his brother sprawled on the floor. Roxas was a statue of fear. He'd gotten them into some serious trouble for the Watchguards to be knocking door to door like angry trick-or-treaters.

"Okay, thank you for your cooperation," A different leveled voice replied. There were two of them, but they were also two. Sora thought briefly about fighting them off.

Or perhaps…

Sora picked Roxas up off the floor and roughly shoved him into the hovel, kicking all this contraptions down with him as the Watchguards' foot steps turned into loud knocks. "One minute," Sora called amiably, throwing Roxas wild signs to stay put. Straightening his day clothes, the brunette brother sauntered as casually as he could to the door, prying open the ancient, creaking thing. "Yes, how can I help you? Oh!"

His shock came across as entirely genuine. The two Watchguards towered in his tiny doorway, standing in stark opposition to the rest of the house. Sora opened the door a bit wider in a disarming greeting. The men were dressed in typical uniform, white high collared shirt with black trim, black slacks, bossed black boots shining with more glory and respect than anything Sora or Roxas ever owned. "Excuse us sir, may we come in?"

Knowing his rights yet playing it cool, Sora put a bashful hand to his blushing face, "Oh, my, under any other circumstance I would love to have you in my home, sirs. However, you caught me in the middle of a tremendous mess, dishes and food everywhere. It's really embarrassing. I hope I can help you from right here?"

The guards exchanged knowing looks. Sora knew too, though his innocent visage betrayed any hint of such. "We're looking for a blonde haired boy, a Nighter. Your neighbors have pinpointed him to this house, by the name of Roxas. May we have a word with him?"

_Damn you, traitors! _Sora condemned his neighbors mentally. The old couple really was quite vindictive ever since the pair of brothers happened to set fire to their beloved garden. An "accident" of course, though the boys ate fresh vegetables for weeks. "Oh, you know, I'm not sure he's returned yet-"

"All Nighters are to be in their residences past the hours of sunrise," one guard, the taller but less imposing looking one, rambled off as if from script.

"Ah, yes, that's so," Sora agreed, smiling with the most charm he could muster, "let me just go look for him."

"If you would, sir," the shorter one, but obviously the one with authority, stopped the brunette before he could shut the door on their noses, "with all due respect, it would be a much more expedient affair if we could come in and talk to him ourselves."

"I'm afraid that's not possible," the boy's face took on a serious, imposing quality. He thought he saw the guards shrink back a bit. "for you see,

I've been quite the clutz and spilled several week old soup across my floor, I'm afraid it would put your health at risk to enter. Please understand."

The taller one's nose wrinkled while the smaller guard remained stoic. Sora and the Watchguard entered a silent confrontation that lasted no longer than 10 seconds, each testing the resolve of the other, only Sora was determined to win more. At last, the guard heaved a sigh and waved his hand dismissively at the boy. "Please be with haste."

"Of course, of course, gentlemen," Sora gave a slight bow and gently shut the door behind him, locking it at silently as he could.

Furiously he whirled around towards the hovel, a sliver of Roxas peeking around the corner. He threw a dish towel at his brother, smacking his face with dirty dish residue. Roxas leapt from the corner and balled the towel, meaning to throw it right back, but the intensity of Sora's glare and the taught finger he pressed to his lips demanded silence. After a heavy sigh and a hand through his hair, Sora took up his backpack and ran to their room.

"Roxas, are you here," he called sweetly, slowly, "Roxas? There's a few Watchguards here, what on earth did you do?"

It was a convincing display. Roxas gathered up his things, already packed, and unlocked the mesh covered back door, waiting on his brother.

His guilt gathered in a lump deep in his throat. With every valuable Sora packed into his bag, the brothers could count how many dreams they were leaving behind.

Running was the _only_ option. If the Watchgaurds caught Roxas, stealing was just as bad as scavenging; in the eyes of the law they were the same thing. Roxas would either have a hand, both hands, or his head removed. In such turbulent and struggling times, food was more valuable than any kind of currency. In fact, it was _the_ currency. Credits, which each worker was allotted a certain amount of every month for their work, were a formality. If the guards couldn't find Roxas, they would be content to settle with his brother. Blood for blood, didn't matter whose.

Sora joined his brother by the back door, the guards low chatting just a mumble on the other side of the decrepit house. As an afterthought,

Roxas ran to his hovel. Sora rolled his eyes, there was no time for a sentimental one-last-look. When his brother emerged, he reeked of gasoline and understanding washed over the boys. They both looked around the hole in the wall house they'd called home for so many years after their parents' passing.

Just like that, it went up in flames.

The hovel started burning first, all of Roxas's life's work melting in the sensuous licks of orange and white colored tongues, gobbling up everything. It spread rapidly up the wooden staircase, hungry for more, devouring the kitchen and soon the entire tiny structure was a massive ball of fire. The guards busted down the door after noticing the tendrils of smoke curling up their feet. .

"Dammit," the shorter, older Watchguard cracked his knuckles in thought, "go around back, try to find them."

It was no use, they both knew that. The boys were long gone, and so was everything they'd ever known.


End file.
